


Goodbye My Sweetheart (Hello Vietnam)

by actualkoschei



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe-Vietnam War, Alternate universe-historical, F/M, Gun Violence, Horror Elements, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Character Death, Not Billy Hargrove Friendly, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Burn, Slurs, Smoking, Somebody gets shot, Vietnam War, i guess?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:41:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24384484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualkoschei/pseuds/actualkoschei
Summary: Jonathan Byers gets his Selective Service letter the day after his twentieth birthday. Sent to a listening post in the Vietnamese jungle, paired with Steve Harrington and followed by Billy Hargrove, he learns the threat facing him might not be what he thinks.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Started as an RP with @otvchi, but it's taken a turn from that.

“D’you smoke?” It was near one, two am, and the jungle was dead dark. Not quiet, not still. Jonathan could hear insects chirping. 

He could hear the ragged breathing of his partner at the listening post, the man holding a cigarette out to him now. Man? No, a boy. He was not much older than Jonathan himself. His dishwater-fair hair stuck around his face, and surely it was too long for military standard. His sleeves were rolled up, and in the faint light of the lighter flame, Jonathan could see that his arms had sweat drops on them, as he shook a cigarette out from a pack and put it in his mouth. 

Jonathan shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

The boy held the lighter up near his face, the flame dancing. There was something written on the lighter, but Jonathan couldn’t read it in the dark. “You should start.” He leaned back on the trunk of the tree, casual as if he were sitting on high-school bleachers. His gun lay by his thigh, the radio resting in the crook of his hip. His helmet was discarded behind him.

_ Does he care?  _ Jonathan wondered.  _ Does he even know where we are? _

He didn’t seem to. He was humming something, sucking on his cigarette.

_ Fuck it _ . Jonathan decided. “But give me one anyway?”

“Do you even know how to smoke?” Harrington, Jonathan remembered now that that was his name, was smirking at him.

“I’m sure I can figure it out.” They hadn’t even been there two days, and Jonathan had had enough of the guy already. And there wasn’t much insulation from him, out here.  _ Here  _ was a listening post, tucked in next to the very front lines, buried in the deep jungle. It was the post people dreaded, the one they spoke about in hushed voices. And Jonathan had barely kicked Vietnamese dirt before they sent him out here.

Harrington leaned forward, putting the cigarette between Jonathan’s lips. A cold shiver ran down Jonathan’s spine as he raised a hand to light it, icy despite the muggy heat clinging to them.

On his first inhale, Jonathan choked. The smoke was in his lungs, burning them. 

Harrington laughed, sticky-dark, and patted him on the back. “Need a lesson, kid?”

  
_ Kid _ . There couldn’t be more than a year between them. Jonathan scowled at him. “I told you I don’t smoke.”

“Hang on.” Harrington’s voice was softer now. “Okay. Breathe in, but carefully. Hold it, then breathe  _ out _ . Don’t  _ swallow _ it.” 

Jonathan’s scowl deepened into a glare. The sweet-softness in Harrington’s tone now made the icy shiver down his spine deepen, and that… he resented that. 

But he followed his instructions nonetheless. This time, the smoke flowed down his lungs, warm, almost hot, and there was an echo of the burn the first drag had brought, but only that. Only an echo. The warmth flowed into his veins, and his stomach felt liquid and bubbly. He had had a sip of champagne, the one time his parents had splurged on a bottle. New Years, he’d been seventeen, and already drinking. This felt like that. He leaned his back against a tree trunk, mirroring Harrington. 

There was silence, for a while. But, once again, it was jungle silence, which isn’t really silence at all. Jonathan could feel his eyes growing heavy, the heat and darkness and the late hour lulling him to sleep, despite his fear and discomfort brought on by his current position. 

He was nearly all the way asleep when Harrington spoke up again. “So, where are you from, back in The World?” He slurred it together, rough with smoke, sounding something more like “wher’ya”. 

“Indiana.” Jonathan answered, startling and shifting as he came back to wakefulness. “Hawkins. You won’t have heard of it.”  _ Tiny little place. Shit-hole. End of the earth _ . Those were the terms that came to mind.

“Fun. How’d you end up out here?”

\----

Jonathan was freshly twenty when the envelope came in the mail. He’d had no party, no friends to celebrate with. There had been a cake, made by his mother’s beleaguered hands, and a bottle of beer he wasn’t legally old enough to drink, handed over by his father with a rare smile. For once, Lonnie Byers was the right amount of drunk. The amount that made him happy, jovial, rather than sober enough to see the bleakness of his life or drunk enough to shout and break things. 

Jonathan had woken up with a headache the next morning, clinging around his temples, and had stopped his old beater car to collect the mail on the way back from work that afternoon. He might have worked at a post office, but sorting his own mail was well outside of the realm of what privacy standards allowed. There was nothing interesting that day, he remembered. An electrical bill, and his mouth went sour looking at it. It wasn’t payday. He’d have to wait and see how much he’d have to give his parents to help pay it.

But there was one other envelope, and it stuck in his hands. He hadn’t noticed it at first, underneath. It was stiff, official-looking. Good paper.

Jonathan’s mouth went dry as ash, and he tore the seal open with shaking hands. As if he didn’t already know what was coming. 

When he saw the Selective Service header, Jonathan did not need to read any further. His stomach was in his throat, suddenly, and he stumbled over to clutch at the fence beside the driveway, hacking and gagging. Bile stung in the back of his mouth.

“Jonathan!” He could hear Will calling his name, but it seemed so far distant, as if he was well and truly far down the road.

“G-go back inside, Will!” He choked out, through leaden lips. “It’s nothing, I’ll be there in a minute!”

“Hurry up!” Will was smiling, happy, oblivious to the fact that the sky was falling, that the world was ending. “I wanna watch Hawaii Five-O!” 

  
They always watched it together, every week.  _ You’re gonna have to get used to watching it without me, Will _ . “I said I’d be there in a  _ minute _ !” 

Jonathan straightened up, took two deep breaths, and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until the tears stopped welling. He went into the kitchen, splashed cold water onto his face until his breathing was steady again. Then, he poured himself a cup of orange juice, half-juice and half-water, and joined Will on the couch. He left the Selective Service letter on the kitchen table. He didn’t want to think about it.

They were halfway through the show, three-quarters of the way through his juice, when Joyce’s scream rang out through the house. 

Jonathan jumped up, spilling the last of his juice into the couch cushions, and ran to the kitchen. “Mom!”

  
“Jonny, Jonny…!” Joyce was clutching the letter to her chest, rocking back and forth. 

“Mom, it’s okay…” Jonathan put his hands on her shoulders.

She threw herself at him, clutching her fingers into his shirt. “You can’t go! You can’t, I won’t let you!”

“Mom…” The tears were in Jonathan’s eyes again, stinging like acid. “I don’t have a choice!”

\---

“Came out here cause I was told. My number came up.”

\---

Lonnie shouted and yelled when he heard about the letter. He raged at Jonathan, but more so, at the government, shouting that “they can’t take my boy!” As if he cared, as if he had ever cared.

Will ran away upstairs. He flipped the lock on his bedroom door, but Jonathan could hear him crying through the door. 

“C’mon, Will, let me in!” Jonathan begged, leaning against the door, listening to his brother sob. 

“ _ No _ !” Will yelled back, his voice scraped raw. 

“There’s no point being mad at  _ me _ !” 

“I  _ am _ mad at you! You’re gonna leave me here, you… you  _ asshole _ !” It was, clearly, the strongest insult Will could come up with to throw at his brother, the tearful venom behind it giving it the weight of a much worse word. 

Jonathan sighed, his breath catching behind a blockage of tears in his own throat. “ _ Please _ , Will.” 

There was the scuffling inside of Will getting up off his bed, and then the door was flung open. Will grabbed at Jonathan, hard enough to yank him down onto the floor. 

They clung together, in a crumpled heap. Will was crying again, into Jonathan’s shoulder, but Jonathan was crying too now, tears spilling down onto his little brother’s hair. His throat ached.

Their parents must have followed them up there, because Lonnie’s hands were on his shoulders then, pulling at him, telling him “no sons of mine are gonna be such crybabies, get up…”and there was Joyce behind him, telling him to “leave them alone…” and Jonathan could barely hear any of it. His vision was going grey, he was gasping like a fish out of water. 

Later on, remembering, he would think that he might have fainted. He remembered coming to, later, still on the bare floorboards of Will’s room. He told himself it must have been a dream. It wasn’t a dream, he realised that all too fast. Got up, stumbled to his own bed, collapsed there into a daze. Not sleep, real sleep would have been too much of a relief.

\---

“That’s rough.” Harrington blew out a cloud of smoke. “You don’t look old enough to be drafted.”

“I’m twenty, you ass!” But Jonathan laughed at that, somehow. It lightened the hold of the memories, and he couldn’t explain why. 

“No way, baby-face!” Harrington was laughing too, sounding a little giddy, making Jonathan wonder if it was really just tobacco in the cigarette he was smoking.

“I haven’t got a damn baby-face, Goldilocks, I…”

“Shh!” Harrington’s face went serious then, his eyes wide, and he stabbed out the cigarette on the wet ground, grabbing Jonathan’s arm painfully hard with his other hand. 

Jonathan wanted to ask what it was, opened his mouth to, but then he heard what Harrington had heard. A rustle of leaves, the snap of a twig, as if under a foot. His heart leapt into his throat. 

Harrington was up in his face, a hand over Jonathan’s throat. His eyes were wide, glossy with fear. 

_ He really got no place calling me baby-face _ . Was all Jonathan could think, as if that was relevant, when some kid in black pajamas might have a rifle trained at their heads  _ right now _ , when his fingers were already twitching towards his own gun…

“You doin’ some queer shit out here, Harrington?” The voice that broke the silence was an  _ American _ voice, and Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief, his heart beating way too fast.

Harrington yanked his hand away from Jonathan’s mouth, lightning fast. “Fuck  _ off _ , Hargrove! You’ll get your head blown off, sneaking around like that!”

“Those little cunts wouldn’t dare come in so close.” There was another snap of twigs under boots, and the soldier came into view. Tall, he might have been handsome, but the sight of him made his skin crawl. He thought of Lonnie, instantly. It was the eyes. Cold, soulless, alcohol-reddened eyes.

“Billy  _ fucking  _ Hargrove.” Harrington breathed out, and he sounded anything but happy. “I thought they sent you North.”

“You ain’t getting rid of me so easily, pretty boy. I came back.” He turned his gaze on Jonathan. “You stay away from that one, cherry, if you know what’s good for you.”

Jonathan looked up at him, slow and cautious. Like looking a snake in the eyes. “You talking to me?”

“Yeah. Fresh meat. You see any other around here?”

Jonathan’s back was up, in the most literal way, hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. “Don’t call me that.”

“Which? Cherry boy?”

“ _ Definitely  _ don’t call me that!” Jonathan spat out. 

Hargrove laughed, a mocking sound that felt like grease when it hit Jonathan’s ears. “Cherry boy.” He repeated. “You’ll learn.”

“Fuck off.” Harrington told the newcomer, but in a way that sounded more like a suggestion. Jonathan could imagine a question mark at the end of it. 

Hargrove laughed, once more, and Jonathan considered punching him in the mouth. “Have fun with your new  _ boyfriend _ , Harrington.” He left, crunching back into the jungle dark from whence he came. 

Jonathan turned back to Harrington. “What’s his problem?” 

The other man looked flustered, one hand at his face as if he wanted to hide it. “That’s Billy Hargrove. He’s a real fucking dick. Stay away from him.”

“Trust me, I wasn’t planning to spend any more time with him. He got some kinda problem with you?”

“We were Charm School classmates.” Harrington said with a bitter laugh, and Jonathan recognised the familiar term.  _ Basic training, incountry _ . “He took a real dislike to me from the start.” But something about that rang false, Jonathan could hear. Harrington was lying, he didn’t know about what part. Unlikely to be the part where they met each other in training. Why, then, would he lie about having had a falling-out with a fellow soldier? 

“He’s a juicer, and a playboy.” Harrington continued. “He’s a bad influence, and a worse person.”

“Sounds like you really hate him.”

“We all have enemies.”

  
“I thought the Viet Cong was all of our enemy.”

“Yeah, well, Charlie’s a bastard, Hargrove’s another. We can have more than one enemy.” The sun was filtering up over the horizon now, streaking the deep blue sky with orange. “Gimme the radio.”

Jonathan handed it over. “What do you need it for?”

“I wanna hear my show, Byers. That’s your name, right?”

“Yeah.” He sat. “Your show?”

Harrington was fiddling with the radio, turning off the military lines to something else. “She’ll be on soon.” Light was touching them now. 

A female voice crackled out of the radio. “ _ Good morning, Vietnam! _ ” She sounded distorted, cheerful, and, Jonathan might have said, young. The same age as them. She sounded like his schoolmates, and a powerful arrow of homesickness lanced through his chest.

Harrington sighed, as if in relief, or great pleasure. “Nancy Wheeler. Most beautiful girl in the world.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Who is she?”

“My sweetie-pie. Radio reporter. I met her in Saigon last leave. She’s amazing, Byers, just you listen.”

Jonathan had to admit, her voice was pleasant to listen to. She seemed to have the kind of cheery bluster usually associated with naivety, or large amounts of stimulants, but she sounded neither naive or tweaked out. Her report was given with crisp formality, despite its cheerful tone. 

“Jesus.” Jonathan sighed, listening to her. “We really doing that badly?”

“She doesn’t pull her punches.” Harrington agreed. “Smart girl. Real smart cookie. Higher-ups have got it out for her, but they haven’t managed to censor her yet.”

There was silence for the rest of Ms Wheeler’s broadcast-- Jonathan hadn’t met her once, but he couldn’t help but think of her as that. But when it was over, Harrington spoke up. “Do you think it’s weird, Byers, that Hargrove was hanging around a listening post he wasn’t even assigned to?”   
  


Jonathan hadn’t quite thought of it. But, upon reflection, it  _ was _ . They should have been the only two -- the only two  _ Americans _ , at least, this far out. “I don’t know. Does he usually go for morning walks in the middle of the Vietnamese jungle?”

Harrington snorted, a half-laugh. “Nah. He was freaky, but not that freaky. Not before they sent him up the river.”

“Up the river?”

“Don’t get sent there, Byers. It’s worse than here. Or so people say. The ones who come back, and there isn’t many of them, they don’t really talk about it. They come back all quiet and fucked up. Except Billy, apparently, who is still talking just as much shit.” He took a breath. “It’s sleep time, Byers. You want the first sleep?” They had been told, indeed, to sleep one at a time, in the day.

Jonathan nodded, and headed for the tent. He did not sleep. He closed his eyes, and wrapped himself in blankets, but sleep did not come. He didn’t know if it was the hardness of the ground underneath him, or the unfamiliar environment, or the heat. Or Harrington. The other man’s image swam behind his eyes, haunting him, and Jonathan couldn’t say why. He didn’t even  _ like _ the cocky asshole, or so he’d swear. But yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about the way sweat clung to the baby hairs around Harrington’s temples.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve struggled to remind himself to listen to the jungle more than any noises that might be coming from the tent, where Byers was sleeping. There was no way, he told himself, that he’d be able to hear the guy breathing from this distance. Besides, what kind of guy wanted to listen to another  _ breathing _ ? 

_ We’re not doing this again _ . Steve told himself sternly.  _ Not another pretty face. He’s  _ not  _ even  _ got  _ a pretty face. We’ve got Nancy now. We don’t need this. It’s trouble, we don’t need any more trouble. Keep our head down, get out, go home, that’s it.  _

_ \--- _

But trouble, in a place like that, had a way of finding even those who weren’t looking for it. 

It was Byers who caught the next disturbance. Steve had been reading, by torchlight, just inside the tent,  _ A Wrinkle in Time _ . He knew Byers was a bigger reader, devouring Vonnegut and Angelou,  _ A Clockwork Orange  _ and  _ To Kill A Mockingbird _ , and maybe there had been some idea, in the back of Steve’s mind, of impressing him when he asked his mother to send him books. 

But Byers interrupted his reading time that night, tapping on the side of the tent wide-eyed, a finger to his lips.  _ Shh _ . He pointed to the jungle.  _ Listen _ . 

Steve dog-eared down a page of his book, and the absence of the disapproving glare he might have expected from Byers was a sign enough that something was very wrong. 

He craned an ear towards the jungle, and there it was again. A rustle, a whisper of a voice, and the voice wasn’t speaking English. Ice ran once more through his blood and he knew, this time, they should be so lucky as to have it be only Hargrove and no greater threat. No. This was more than one person, and they weren’t American. No ARVN would have the sheer balls, and sheer lack of sense, to be sneaking around the perimeter like this. 

Steve pointed at the guns, and knew he didn’t have to tell Byers to pick one up. The other man was moving already.  _ Smart cookie _ , Steve thought, and lifted his own rifle. 

The safety was cool under his fingers, and he waited, baited-breathed, to flick it off. His breathing was loud and ragged, tearing at his lungs, at his throat. He could hear Byers, crouched down, breathing just as hard, as Steve moved his way out of the tent.

The radio, the two-way, in his hand was alive. “Is your position alpha sierra?” He could hear the voice on the other end ask.  _ All secure. No, no, we’re fucking not!  _ But he didn’t dare make a sound. Didn’t dare so much as breathe louder, for risk of letting whatever, whoever, was just behind the trees know that they’d been hurt. The voice repeated its question, and, once more, Steve did not answer.

He could see Byers through the indigo-dark, shooting an annoyed expression at him. Annoyed, he thought, not at him, but at the radio operator, so oblivious to their plight.  _ He must think we’re sleeping _ , Steve thought. 

“If your position is not alpha sierra, squeeze the handle now.” The voice said, finally,  _ finally _ . The handle damn near snapped off in Steve’s hand with how hard he squeezed. He could feel it cutting into his flesh. 

Then, too late, he realised that there was nothing the recognition of their danger could actually do to help him. What were they going to do, send out reinforcements? The Viet Cong weren’t but sixteen feet or so away from them! Steve felt cold sweat, sweat that had nothing to do with the damp heat, and all the more to do with his racing heart and clenching chest, break out on the back of his neck. 

There was a shadow in the clearing. Human-sized, Steve realised, and just barely into the light, almost indistinct from the trees around it. But he saw it, and it saw him too. 

It was,  _ they were _ , raising a gun, Steve realised. He didn’t have time to get the safety off his own gun. He didn’t even have time to react before a shot rang out through the woods, startling insects out of trees, provoking a sound of hushed whispers from around them.

Steve had fallen back, flat on his back, when the shot went off. It took him a moment longer, an excruciatingly extended moment, to realise he hadn’t actually been shot. 

Byers was kneeling down, holding his gun, and it was obvious that it had just gone off. He was startled, his eyes wide, chest heaving with panting breaths.

The shadow person had fallen, and fallen into the torch-light. Now, Steve could see it was just a man. Just a man, in dusty clothing, with a bleeding wound through his neck. That Byers had put there.

“Oh,  _ god _ !” Byers whined, clasping at his own knees.

_ He’s never killed anyone before _ . Steve realised suddenly, like a bucket of cold water over his head.  _ Of course he hasn’t. Cherry boy, just like Hargrove said _ . He scrambled, half-standing, over to Byers’s side.

The other man was shaking, pale in the face, clutching at his knees. He was in some kind of shock, that much was obvious, rocking back and forth. “I… I killed him!” He managed, once Steve reached him. “I killed him, he’s dead!”

“Yeah. Yeah, you sure did.” Steve put his arms around Byers, acting on instinct. It seemed the dead man’s comrades had melted back into the jungle.  _ Hopefully, they don’t come back too soon for the body _ . 

“He was gonna kill you!” Byers whined, turning his face to look at Steve. His eyes were wide, dark, and filled with anguish.

“Yeah.” Steve let out a breath as the reality of that sunk in.  _ I almost died. I almost DIED!  _ “You saved my damn life. Wow. Uh… thank you, I guess, Byers.” He stammered the last part out. It felt lacking, but what else could he say?

Byers surprised him then. Instead of whatever reaction Steve had been expecting -- a laugh, a snort, some kind of manly posturing to downplay it -- he turned around and buried his face in Steve’s chest, clutching frantically at the back of his shirt. His shoulders were shaking, it was obvious he was sobbing, even before Steve felt the wet warmth of tears.

“Hey, hey!” He kept his arms around Byers, rubbing his back. “It’s okay. It’s okay, we’re okay now!”

“He was gonna kill you!” Byers’s voice was muffled as he spoke into Steve’s chest. “He was gonna kill you, and  _ I killed him _ !” It wasn’t clear which part was causing him the more agony.

“Yeah, and that’s war time. You saved my  _ life _ ! You did the right thing, Byers.”

The only answer he got to that was more agonised sobs.

Steve sat there for a while, holding the sobbing Byers in his arms, mosquitoes biting his sweaty arms. “C’mon.” He said, at length. “I’m getting eaten alive here, let’s go in the tent. I’ll read one of your fancy books to you.”

Byers looked up at him, with somewhat of a squint due to his eyes being raw and swollen from crying. “You’re gonna read to me?” He sounded purely confused.

Steve’s heart sank, and he was suddenly intensely self-conscious. “I… only if you want me to! I thought it might help you calm down!”

“No, I’d like that!” Byers rushed to assure him. “It’s just, nobody’s read to me since I was a kid!”

“Well, come on!” Steve dragged him to the tent. It was only when they were situated there, with Byers curled up in his sleeping roll and Steve sat up on his with  _ Slaughterhouse Five _ spread open on his lap, that he probed further. “Really, you’ve never put your head in a girl’s lap and had her read to you? Bookworm like you?”

Byers mumbled something, but Steve didn’t catch it. “What was that?”

“I said, I’ve never had a girlfriend before!”

Steve’s eyes went wide. “Really?”  _ But you’re so pretty… no!  _ He told himself forcefully, stopping that thought as it started. “And you’re twenty?”

“Nearly twenty-one.” Byers sounded embarassed. “And I’ve never even been kissed. If you want to make fun of me for it, get it over with now.”

“I’m not gonna make fun!” Steve assured him. “I was just… surprised!”

“Why?”

Steve scrambled for the kind of reason that didn’t get one punched in the face by most decent, red-blooded American men. “I just… you’re from a small town, you said, right? Don’t you small town people shack up young?”  _ Yeah, Steve, because you’re from the big smoke, aren’t you? Yeah, right. _

Byers pulled a face. “Not me. That wasn’t for me.”

“You don’t wanna get married? Have a nice girl back home waiting for you?”

“I don’t.” Byers said, rather firmly. “Are you gonna read, or not?”

“ _ All of this happened, more or less… _ ” Steve began, and Byers settled.

Steve did not settle. He watched Byers’s face over the top of the pages, and his heart raced. The stress, he told himself. The adrenaline. That’s why his heart was going so fast. It had nothing to do with watching the anxiety slowly ebb from Byers’s face, as the other man rested with his eyes closed. It had nothing to do with the soft purse of his lips as he settled to the sound of Steve reading. Nothing to do with him at all.

\---

That night, Steve tried to think of Nancy. Of the taste of her lips when she kissed him goodbye. Coffee and condensed milk, she’d tasted of, the Vietnamese iced coffee she bought from the street sellers. The GIs wouldn’t dare, most of them, take a drink from the locals. But Nancy was bold like that. 

And if he asked, she’d say it had nothing to do with bravery, even if she’d agree that she  _ was  _ brave. That much wasn’t really arguable. But she’d say, it had to with seeing the Vietnamese as just as human as any American. She’d glare at him when she said it, too. Steve remembered the way she’d look at him when he said something she didn’t like, the sharpness in her blue eyes. Damn, she had beautiful eyes. 

And when it flickered in his mind that he was thinking of brown eyes just as much as blue, Steve thought of the curve of Nancy’s waist, of her dressing in a mirror on their last morning together. 

“Come back from out there, GI.” She’d told him, and there was a smile on her lips, but sadness in her eyes. Her face was scrubbed clean, and she was buttoning up her blouse. 

“Kiss me for good luck, Nance.” Steve remembered saying, sprawled out on a half-made bed in Nancy’s Vietnamese hotel room.  _ They put the reporters up nice _ , he had thought.  _ Or, she’s paying for it herself. Poor little rich girl? _ He wondered. 

He didn’t know where Nancy came from. They didn’t talk about Back Home. You couldn’t sit in a room in Saigon and think about Newport, Massachusetts. It wasn’t possible. For all he knew, she had come into being when she stepped off a plane, wearing men’s pants and crisp-collared blouses, her hair scooped up in a fluffy pun, her eyes lined dark like Twiggy. 

She had been the only white girl in the nightclub the night they met. Sometimes, Steve was ashamed to think that’s why he’d noticed her, at first. He was sitting at the bar, nursing a broken heart and a drink that tasted like engine cleaner, he thought. Nancy was dancing alone, in the middle of the sticky club floor, to the bumping, nearly incomprehensible music. Her hair was piled up high, she wore a tight dress and even more makeup ringing her eyes. There was a beer in her hand, and she was twisting the night away, as the song so went, with wild abandon.

He bought her a second drink, then, later on, a third. By then, it was the wee hours of the morning, and Nancy, tiny little thing that she was, was nearly falling-down drunk. Steve took her home. They didn’t do anything that night. Steve Harrington was, if nothing else, a gentleman. She gave him just a kiss on the cheek, lipstick-sticky.

\---

Leaning back on his sleeping roll, Steve rubbed at that same spot on his cheek, at the memory of lipstick. In his nose was the remembered smell of perfume and beer and sweat. It shouldn’t have been a good smell. It was. 

Byers was moving in his sleep. He was making sounds, moaning and whining. Steve turned on his side, and whispered to him to “shh!” It wasn’t the kindest response, but he was  _ tired _ , and he’d been having a  _ perfectly nice fantasy _ . 

Byers only whimpered louder, putting his hands up to his face as if he was protecting himself. 

Steve’s heart softened, and he leaned forward. “Hey, Byers. You’re okay, hey.” He told him, soft-voiced. 

Another whine, this one frightened, hurt-sounding.

  
Something was uncurling itself in Steve’s chest, right in the center of it. A protective kind of thing. Something that wanted to wrap itself around Byers and soothe away whatever fearful thing was making him cry in his sleep. He put a hand against Byers’s cheek instead.  _ He’s not gonna wake up. He doesn’t have to know _ .  _ This won’t be like Billy again. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve is from Newport because Joe Keery is from Newport, and Jonathan already took the position of being from Hawkins.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was like pulling teeth. It took me over a month to write. So I'm so glad to be done with it.

Jonathan woke up with his face uncomfortably close to Harrington’s. He grumbled, swatting him away.

Jonathan pulled a face. “What were you doing on my bed, Harrington, and why are you hitting  _ me _ about it?” 

Harrington stammered for an answer. “Must have rolled over in my sleep.”

_ Sure you did.  _ Jonathan thought to himself, but then  _ yeah, he probably did. Don’t go getting your hopes up. He felt sorry for you last night, that’s all _ . 

There was near-silence as they made breakfast, canned food and instant coffee. Jonathan ate his dessert first every day, using, that day, the taste of tinned peaches to get the bitterness of malaria pills out of his mouth. 

Harrington was plowing through his crackers, making a face at every bite. “You gonna give me some of those peaches?” He asked, teasing.

Jonathan put a possessive hand around his peaches, as if protecting them from hostile intervention. “Get your own, Harrington!”

Harrington laughed, and pulled a pleading face, exaggerated and comedic. 

Jonathan felt something turn over inside his chest. “You take your pills?”

“Yeah?” Harrington looked suspicious.

“Gimme your fork.” He stuck it into his own tin of peaches. “Two slices, that’s all you’re getting off me.”

Harrington’s face lit up. “You’re a  _ gem _ , Byers!”

Jonathan’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of that smile. “Just eat it, Harrington.”

He shouldn’t have told him that. The way Harrington enjoyed the sweet fruit was, Jonathan thought, frankly indecent. His wet tongue flickered out to lick up the last of the juice that clung to the peaches from the can off his pink lips, his eyes closed, and he looked to be in frank bliss. 

Jonathan’s stomach felt tight at the sight of it.  _ I made him look like that.  _ He thought, with a guilty shiver. Even if it wasn’t really true. All he did was provide the material that made Harrington make that face.  _ I  _ could  _ make him look like that.  _ Jonathan’s traitorous brain further provided. 

_ What, because you’ve been with  _ so  _ many guys before?  _ Jonathan taunted himself.  _ Just because you know you’re a pervert doesn’t mean you’re  _ good  _ at it.  _

Jonathan had been ten the first time Lonnie Byers called him queer. Eleven when he learned what it meant. Thirteen when he realised it was true. And in all that time, he had never once said it aloud. He thought that maybe he never would. 

Harrington wasn’t queer. He was nearly sure of it. Nobody with that pretty face and that golden hair could be, Jonathan didn’t get that kind of luck. Besides, he had a girl waiting for him in Saigon, he had  _ said _ .

So, why was he looking at Jonathan’s lips right back?

“Harrington…” Jonathan fried to start off. 

Harrington raised a hand. “Shh. Don’t speak.” He said, his own voice hushed and soft. 

Jonathan obeyed, and, instead, just looked at him, questions filling his eyes. 

Harrington leaned closer to him, and the stove, with its little fire, was the only thing separating them. So Harrington moved around it. 

Jonathan sat back. He couldn’t help it. Harrington was close, almost too close. The hairs on the back of Jonathan’s neck were standing up. 

“You want this, don’t you?” Harrington asked. As if Jonathan has some idea what he was talking about. 

Jonathan did not. But he was sure there was nothing Harrington could have to give him that he wouldn’t want. So he breathed out, in a croaking whisper, “yes.”

And then, there was barely air between them. And then, not even that. Their lips were pressed together. Harrington was kissing him. 

Jonathan’s eyes went wide, and he froze. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t know how to kiss back. He’d never tried before.

All too soon, the sweet pressure on his lips was gone. Harrington was scrambling away, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry!” He gasped out. 

“No–!” Jonathan knew his voice was scratchy. 

“I read you wrong. I thought you wanted…”

“Thought he wanted what?” It wasn’t Harrington’s voice, and it obviously wasn’t Jonathan’s either.  _ Hargrove.  _ Jonathan went cold all over. 

“To take my food!” Harrington stammered, a weak excuse if there ever was one. 

Jonathan was glad his back was still to the newcomer, so Hargrove couldn’t see him rubbing his lips. He thought he might have earned himself a punch in the same mouth if he did. 

“Stealing rations now, Byers? Fucking new guy.” Hargrove kicked a tree.

“I wasn’t stealing anything!” Jonathan defended himself. “And it isn’t any of your business anyway, fuck off!”

“ _ Aggro. _ ” Hargrove drew the two syllables out into something long and mocking. “Anyway, I didn’t come here to kill time.”

“Why  _ did  _ you come here?” Harrington asked, sounding cranky and flustered in equal measure. 

“I wanna show you guys something.” He sounded confident, as if he was sure it would be the sight of their lives. Jonathan had to admit he was even curious. 

So he got up, beckoning Harrington to come with him, and followed Hargrove, despite the hairs standing up on the back of his neck warning him how bad an idea this was.

They were headed deeper into the jungle, and Jonathan was  _ sure _ , everything else aside,  _ Hargrove _ aside, that this wasn’t safe. Mines, Viet Cong guerrillas, frightened locals, rivers, animals… his mind boggled as he reached through a list of all the things that could go wrong in the deep jungle. It was hot, sweaty, and he jumped at every fat bead of sweat running down the back of his collar, thinking it to be some kind of venomous insect. 

Neither of his companions looked well. Harrington, he was the one Jonathan worried more about. Not because he thought of him as a threat, but because of the creeping warm thing in his chest that reared up every time he looked at him. That  _ thing _ told him he had to protect Harrington. Who looked far from well, pale, as sweaty as Jonathan was sure he himself also was, and frightened. Jonathan wanted to hold his hand, his palms itched with the want. But even if Harrington would have appreciated that, they hardly could, with Hargrove looming over them.

Yes, looming was the word. The man was big, sure, but somehow, the way light and shadow bent around him made him look even bigger. The angles of his face didn’t look right, Jonathan thought, and tried to dismiss the thought as paranoia, but something wouldn’t let him. The man didn’t look  _ human _ , his mind whispered to him. Or, he didn’t look human  _ anymore. _ His eyes were as flat as the glass eyes of the alarming doll Joyce kept on her bureau, a Christmas gift from her childhood. His smile made Jonathan’s skin crawl.

“Hey.” Jonathan spoke up, a strained and quiet sound through the sticky half-dark. “Hargrove. It’s Hargrove, right? Where are you taking us?”

The name didn’t seem to rouse any attention in the man, which made Jonathan wonder if he had indeed gotten it wrong, but the question did. He turned, without a startle. Smooth, too smooth. “You will see.” Something about the way he spoke sounded unsettlingly final. 

Harrington shot Jonathan a look over his shoulder. It said,  _ “can you believe this guy?”  _ What it didn’t say was,  _ “something’s very wrong here, and I’m scared, _ ” which is what Jonathan thought might have been the more sensible opinion at this point. 

_ Maybe he’s just high.  _ Jonathan reasoned.  _ He seems like a stoner. Maybe you’re just paranoid, Byers. And what’s tickling the back of your neck  _ definitely  _ isn’t a spider, it’s just sweat. Calm down. _

“So Bill -- uh, Hargrove.” Harrington broke through the silent, his voice a little high with feigned silence. “What’s been going on since we left?”

Hargrove ignored him. “It’s none of your business.” He said, maybe three or so minutes later, when ignoring Harrington must have gotten broken. 

“Okay, okay!” Harrington held up his hands. “Just tryin’ to make conversation!”

_ Don’t. _ Jonathan said, in his head.  _ I don’t want to hear from him and we should be listening for danger.  _ He telegraphed this to Harrington not by speaking aloud, but with a tug at the cuff of his shirt. Harrington’s sleeves were still rolled up around his biceps, moving into the jungle not seeming to be a prompt for more formality in uniform to him, and Jonathan’s fingers grazed his warm, sweat-slick skin. His mouth went dry.

“We’re here.” Hargrove announced, out of seemingly nowhere.

Jonathan stopped, and took stock of where they were. Checking his watch, it said that they had been walking for hours. Jonathan wasn’t sure that was true. It could have been minutes, or days. His head was floating, his mouth dry with more than proximity to Harrington. Maybe he needed some water. 

Despite Hargrove’s declaration, they weren’t really  _ anywhere _ , Jonathan was forced to conclude. It looked much the same as any other patch of deep, dark gentle. Tangled veins and touching trees nearly blocked out the light of the sky here. The sun might be going down, the purplish nature of the little bit of light that reached them suggested as such. “Uh, where  _ is  _ here?” He chanced to ask.

“Come.” Hargove had stepped behind him without him noticing, and he shoved him forward. Jonathan lost his balance for a moment, stumbled and nearly fell. The ground under his feet was wet, spongy and waterlogged. When he stumbled, the toe of his boot dug into it, swirling up water that he didn’t want to think much about. 

Under Hargrove’s insistent hand, he broke through the curtain of vine-laden trees into something of a circular clearing, and that was his first clue that something was wrong. There shouldn’t simply  _ be _ a clearing of this size in this heavy jungle, he hadn’t noticed any others as they were walking here. Nor should it be so close to round.

Looking at what was in the clearing, however, his sense of dread and wrong grew stronger. It wasn’t just the sight. A smell reached him then, too, like slapping into a wall of the scent of rot and decay. Worse by ten times than the scent of rotting trash on the hottest day of summer, after nobody had paid the electric bill that month. It had been years, back home, since they had let it get that bad. But this, oh, this was even worse. Bad enough to make Jonathan’s head spin.

The clearing didn’t look alive either, not really. The trees and veins seemed black and hollow, as if they were beset by rot already. Around the bases of the trees, something was growing out of the ground, between the roots that broke through the spongy earth. It looked like eggs, pulsing, twisted, translucent eggs, with something that glowed sickly orange inside them. Looking up more now, and around again, Jonathan could see nodes of the same unsettling pulsing orange material on the vines and trees. The pulsing put him in mind of a heartbeat. Jonathan wanted to run. 

His fingers twitched towards his gun. Never before had his sense of imminent danger been so profound, not even in an active firefight. His fingers were around the handle before he knew it, and somehow, the touch of it comforted him. He had used to hate handling a gun, but now… now, it felt good. 

The click of someone else’s safety being taken off startled Jonathan, freezing him mid-draw. He looked up, slowly, not really even wanting to see what he was going to see.

Harrington’s eyes were wide, panicked, and Hargrove had the barrel of his own gun pressed to the other man’s temple.

Jonathan stared, nausea rising inside him.

“I wouldn’t.” Hargrove spoke, clipped and unnatural. “Try anything.”


End file.
